A great part of the priory was rebuilt in the reign
of Henry IV., and it became famous for its mulberry-garden," one of the first planted in England.
That garden stood to the east of the present
Middlesex Passage, and it was under its great
leafy trees that scholars at fair-time held their
logical disputations. Within the gates the northern
part of the priory ground was occupied by a large
cemetery with a spacious court, now Bartholomew
Close. After the time of Henry IV. the City
established a firm right to all fair-tolls outside
the priory enclosure. The last prior of St. Bartholomew who was acknowledged by the English
kings died in office, and was the last prior but one
of the Black Canons of West Smithfield. This was
that same Prior Bolton who built the oriel in
the church for the sacristan to watch the altarlights; and he built largely, as we have already
shown, at Canonbury. He had two parishes, Great
St. Bartholomew and Little St. Bartholomew, within
his jurisdiction. At the dissolution the priory
and the hospital were torn apart by greedy hands
for ever.

In 1537 Sir Thomas Gresham, then Lord Mayor,
prayed that the City might govern St. Mary, St.
Thomas, and St. Bartholomew Hospitals, "for the
relief, comfort, and aid of the helpless poor and
indigent." In 1544 the king established a new
Hospital of St. Bartholomew, under a priest, as
master, and four chaplains; but the place was mismanaged, and King Henry VIII. founded it anew,
"for the continual relief and help of a hundred
sore and diseased."

At the dissolution the privileges of the fair were
shared by the corporation and Lord Rich (died
1568), ancestor of the Earls of Warwick and
Holland. The Cloth Fair dwindled away in the
reign of Elizabeth, when the London drapers found
wider markets for their woollens, and the clothiers,
as roads grew better, started to wider fields. The
three days' fair soon grew into a fourteen days' carnival, to which all ranks resorted. We find the
amiable and contemplative Evelyn writing of his
having seen "the celebrating follies" of Bartholomew; and that accumulative man, Sir Hans
Sloane, sending a draughtsman to record every
lusus naturæ or special oddity. In 1708 (Queen
Anne), the nuisance of such licence becoming
intolerable to the neighbourhood, the fair was again
restricted to three days. The saturnalia was always
formally opened by the Lord Mayor, and the proclamation for the purpose was read at the entrance
to Cloth Fair. On his way to Smithfield it was
the custom for the mayor to call on the keeper
of Newgate, and on horseback partake of "a cool
tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar;" the flap of
the tankard lid, it will be remembered, caused the
death of the mayor, Sir John Shorter, in 1688,
his horse starting, and throwing him violently. The
custom ceased in the second mayoralty of Sir
Matthew Wood.

"In 1615," (fn. 1) says Howes, "the City of London
reduced the rude, vast place of Smithfield into a
faire and comely order, which formerly was never
held possible to be done, and paved it all over,
and made divers sewers to convey the water from
the new channels which were made by reason of
the new pavement; they also made strong rayles
round about Smithfield, and sequestered the middle
part of the said Smithfield into a very faire and
civill walk, and rayled it round about with strong
rayles, to defend the place from annoyance and
danger, as well from carts as all manner of cattell,
because it was intended hereafter that in time it
might prove a faire and peaceable market-place, by
reason that Newgate Market, Moorgate, Cheapside,
Leadenhall, and Gracechurche Street were unmeasurably pestred with the unimaginable increase
and multiplicity of market folks. And this field,
commonly called West Smithfield, was for many
years called 'Ruffians' Hall,' by reason it was the
usual place of frayes and common fighting during
the time that sword and bucklers were in use.
But the ensuing deadly fight of rapier and dagger
suddenly suppressed the fighting with sword and
buckler."

Shakespeare has more than one allusion to the
horse-fair in Smithfield, and of these the following
is the most marked:—

Falstaff. Where's Bardolph?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a
horse.

Falstaff. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse
in Smithfield; an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I
were manned, horsed, and wived.—Second Part of Henry IV.,
Act i., Sc. 2. (fn. 2)

That fine, vigorous old satirist, Ben Jonson, the
dear friend and protégé of Shakespeare, named
one of his best comedies after this great London
fair, and has employed his Hogarthian genius to
depict the pickpockets, eating-house-keepers, protesting Puritans, silly citizens, and puppet-show proprietors of the reign of James I. Some extracts
from his amusing play, Bartholomew Fair, 1613
(written in the very climax of the author's power),
are indispensable in any history, however brief, of
this outburst of national merriment. The following
extract from Mr. Morley's "History of Bartholomew
Fair" contains some of the most characteristic
passages:—

"Nay," says Littlewit, "we'll be humble enough, we'll
seek out the homeliest booth in the fair, that's certain; rather
than fail, we'll eat it on the ground." "Aye," adds Dame
Purecroft, "and I'll go with you myself. Win-the-Fight
and my brother, Zeal-of-the-Land, shall go with us, too,
for our better consolation." Then says the Rabbi, "In the
way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat
exceedingly, and prophecy. There may be a good use made
of it, too, now I think on't, by the public eating of swine's
flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof
the brethren stand taxed. I will therefore eat, yea, I will
eat exceedingly." So these also set off for the fair.

In the fair, as I have said, is Justice Overdue, solemnly
establishing himself as a fool, for the benefit of public morals.
There are the booths and stalls. There is prosperous Lanthorn Leatherhead, the hobby-horse man, who cries, "What
do you lack? What is't you buy? What do you lack?
Rattles, drums, halberts, horses, babies o' the best, fiddles
of the finest!" He is a too proud pedler, owner also of a
famous puppet-show, the manager, indeed, for whom Proctor
Littlewit has sacrificed to the Bartholomew muses. Joan
Trash, the gingerbread-woman, keeps her stall near him,
and the rival traders have their differences. "Do you hear,
Sister Trash, lady of the basket! sit farther with your gingerbread progeny, there, and hinder not the prospect of my
shop, or I'll have it proclaimed in the fair what stuff they
are made on." "Why, what stuff are they made on, Brother
Leatherhead? Nothing but what's wholesome, I assure
you." "Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and
dead honey, you know." "I defy thee, and thy stable of
hobby-horses. I pay for my ground, as well as thou dost.
Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread! Will your worship
buy any gingerbread? Very good bread, comfortable
bread!"

The cries of the fair multiply. "Buy any ballads? new
ballads! Hey!"
"Now the fair's a filling!
Oh, for a tune to startle
The birds o' the booths here billing
Yearly with old Saint Bartle!"

"Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!" "What do
you lack, gentlemen? Maid, see a fine hoppy-horse for your
young master. Cost you but a token (fn. 3) a week his provender."

"Have you any corns on your feet and toes?"

"Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a
flea?"

"Buy some gingerbread?"

"What do you lack, gentlemen? fine purses, pouches,
pin-cases, pipes? What is't you lack? a pair o' smiths, to
wake you in the morning, or a fine whistling bird?"

"Ballads! ballads! fine new ballads!"

"Hear for your love, and buy for your money,

A delicate ballad o' the ferret and the coney;
A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters,
The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three quarters."

"What do you lack, what do you buy, mistress? A fine
hobby-horse, to make your son a tilter? A drum, to make
him a soldier? A fiddle, to make him a reveller? What
is't you lack? little dogs for your daughters, or babies, male
or female?"

"Gentlewomen, the weather's hot; whither walk you?
Have a care of your fine velvet caps; the fair is dusty. Take
a sweet, delicate booth with boughs, here in the way, and
cool yourselves in the shade, you and your friends. The
best pig and bottle-ale in the fair, sir. Old Ursula is cook.
There you may read—'Here be the best pigs, and she does
roast them as well as ever she did'"—(there is a picture of
a pig's head over the inscription, and)—"the pig's head
speaks it."

In "Wit and Drollery: Jovial Poems," 1682, the
writer has hit off several of the chief rarities of the
fair:—
"Here's that will challenge all the fair.
Come, buy my nuts and damsons, and Burgamy pears!
Here's the Woman of Babylon, the Devil, and the Pope,
And here's the little girl, just going on the rope!
Here's Dives and Lazarus, and the World's Creation;
Here's the Tall Dutchwoman, the like's not in the nation.
Here is the booths, where the high Dutch maid is;
Here are the bears that dance like any ladies;
Tat, tat, tat, tat, says little penny trumpet;
Here's Jacob Hall, that does so jump it, jump it;
Sound, trumpet, sound, for silver spoon and fork,
Come, here's your dainty pig and pork."

In the year 1698, a Frenchman, Monsieur Sorbière, visiting London, says, "I was at Bartholomew Fair. It consists mostly of toy-shops, also
finery and pictures, ribbon-shops—no books; many
shops of confectioners, where any woman may
commodiously be treated. Knavery is here in perfection, dextrous cutpurses and pickpockets. I
went to see the dancing on the ropes, which was
admirable. Coming out, I met a man that would
have took off my hat, but I secured it, and was
going to draw my sword, crying, 'Begar! You
rogue! Morbleu!' &c., when on a sudden I
had a hundred people about me crying, 'Here,
monsieur, see Jephthah's Rash Vow.' 'Here, monsieur, see the Tall Dutchwoman.' 'See The Tiger,'
says another. 'See the Horse and no Horse,'
whose tail stands where his head should do.' 'See
the German Artist, monsieur.' 'See The Siege of
Namur.' So that betwixt rudeness and civility I
was forced to get into a fiacre, and with an air of
haste and a full trot, got home to my lodgings."

In 1702, the following advertisement appeared
relative to the fair:—

"At the Great Booth over against the Hospital Gate, in
Bartholomew Fair, will be seen the famous company of ropedancers, they being the greatest performers of men, women,
and children that can be found beyond the seas, so that the
world cannot parallel them for dancing on the low rope,
vaulting on the high rope, and for walking on the slack and
sloaping ropes, outdoing all others to that degree, that it
has highly recommended them, both in Bartholomew Fair
and May Fair last, to all the best persons of quality in
England. And by all are owned to be the only amazing
wonders of the world in everything they do. It is there you
will see the Italian Scaramouch dancing on the rope, with a
wheelbarrow before him with two children and a dog in it,
and with a duck on his head, who sings to the company, and
causes much laughter. The whole entertainment will be so
extremely fine and diverting, as never was done by any but
this company alone."

Ned Ward, as the "London Spy," went, of
course, to the fair, but in a coach, to escape the
dirt and the crowd, and at the entrance he says
he was "saluted with Belphegor's concert, the
rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable
squeaking of catcalls and penny trumpets, made
still more terrible with the shrill belches of lottery
pickpockets through instruments of the same metal
with their faces." The spy having been set down
with his friend at the hospital gate, went into a
convenient house, to smoke a pipe and drink small
beer bittered with colocynth. From one of its
windows he looked down on a crowd rushing,
ankle-deep in filth, through an air tainted by fumes
of tobacco and of singeing, over-roasted pork, to
see the Merry Andrew. On their galleries strutted,
in their buffoonery of stateliness, the quality of the
fair, dressed in tinsel robes and golden leather
buskins. "When they had taken a turn the length
of their gallery, to show the gaping crowd how majestically they could tread, each ascended to a seat
agreeable to the dignity of their dress, to show the
multitude how imperiously they could sit."

A few years before this the fair is sketched by
Sir Robert Southwell, in a letter to his son (26th
August, 1685). "Here," he says, "you see the
rope-dancers gett their living meerly by hazarding
of their lives; and why men will pay money and
take pleasure to see such dangers, is of separate
and philosophical consideration. You have others
who are acting fools, drunkards, and madmen, but
for the same wages which they might get by honest
labour, and live with credit besides. Others, if
born in any monstrous shape, or have children that
are such, here they celebrate their misery, and, by
getting of money, forget how odious they are made.
When you see the toy-shops, and the strange variety of things much more impertinent than hobbyhorses of ginger-bread, you must know there are
customers for all these matters; and it would be a
pleasing sight could you see painted a true figure
of all these impertinent minds and their fantastic
passions, who come trudging hither only for such
things. Tis out of this credulous crowd that the
ballad-singers attrackt an assembly, who listen and
admire, while their confederate pickpockets are
diving and fishing for their prey.

"'Tis from those of this number who are more
refined that the mountebank obtains audience and
credit; and it were a good bargain if such customers had nothing for their money but words,
but they are best content to pay for druggs and
medicines, which commonly doe them hurt. There
is one corner of this Elizium field devoted to the
eating of pig and the surfeits that attend it. The
fruits of the season are everywhere scattered about,
and those who eat imprudently do but hasten to
the physitian or the churchyard."

"In the year 1727-28," says Mr. Morley, "Gay's
Beggar's Opera was produced, and took the foremost place among the pleasures of the town. It
took a foremost place also among the pleasures of
the next Bartholomew Fair, being acted during the
time of the fair by the company of comedians from
the new theatre in the Haymarket, at the 'George'
Inn in Smithfield. William Penkethman, one of
the actors who had become famous as a boothmanager, was then recently dead, and the Haymarket comedians carried the Beggar's Opera out
of Bartholomew into Southwark Fair, where 'the late
Mr. Penkethman's great theatrical booth' afforded
them a stage. One of the managers of this specula
tion was Henry Fielding, then only just of age, a
young man who, with good birth, fine wit, and a
liberal education, both at Eton and at Leyden
University, was left to find his own way in the
world. His father agreed to allow him two hundred
a year in the clouds, and, as he afterwards said,
his choice lay between being a hackney writer and
a hackney coachman. He lived to place himself,
in respect to literature, at the head of the prose
writers of England, I dare even venture to think,
of the world."

"A writer in the St. James's Chronicle (March 24,
1791) wished to place upon record the fact that it
was Shuter, a comedian, who, in the year 1759,
when master of a droll in Smithfield, invented a
way, since become general at fairs, of informing
players in the booth when they may drop the
curtain and dismiss the company, because there
are enough people waiting outside to form another
audience. The man at the door pops in his head,
and makes a loud inquiry for 'John Audley.'"
The ingenious contriver of this device is the Shuter
who finds a place in "The Rosciad" of Churchill:
"Shuter, who never cared a single pin
Whether he left out nonsense, or put in."

"There lived," says Mr. Morley, "about this
time a popular Merry Andrew, who sold gingerbread nuts in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden,
and because he received a guinea a day for his fun
during the fair, he was at pains never to cheapen
himself by laughing, or by noticing a joke, during
the other 362 days of the year."

"Garrick's name," says the same writer, "is
connected with the fair only by stories that regard
him as a visitor out of another world. He offers
his money at the entrance of a theatrical booth,
and it is thought a jest worth transmitting to posterity that he is told by the checktaker, 'We
never takes money of one another.' He sees one
of his own sturdy Drury Lane porters installed
at a booth-door, where he is pressed sorely in
the crowd, and calls for help. 'It's no use,' he
is told, 'I can't help you. There's very few
people in Smithfield as knows Mr. Garrick off the
stage.'"

In "Oliver Twist" Dickens sketches with his
peculiar power the dangerous neighbourhood of
Smithfield, which lay between Islington and Saffron
Hill, the lurking-place of the Sykeses and Fagins
of thirty years ago:—

"As John Dawkins," says Dickens, "objected
to their entering London before nightfall, it was
nearly eleven o'clock before they reached the turnpike at Islington. They crossed from the 'Angel'
into St. John's Road, struck down the small street
which terminates at Sadler's Wells Theatre, through
Exmouth Street and Coppice Row, down the little
court by the side of the workhouse, across the
classic ground which once bore the name of
Hockley-in-the-Hole, thence into Little Saffron
Hill, and so into Saffron Hill the Great, along
which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace, directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.

THE CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW-THE-GREAT, 1737.

"Although Oliver had enough to occupy his
attention in keeping sight of his leader, he could not
help bestowing a few hasty glances on either side
of the way, as he passed along. A dirtier or more
wretched place he had never seen. The street was
very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. There were a good many
small shops, but the only stock-in-trade appeared
to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of
night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or
screaming from the inside. The sole places that
seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the
place were the public-houses, and in them the
lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might
and main. Covered ways and yards, which here
and there diverged from the main street, disclosed
little knots of houses where drunken men and
women were positively wallowing in the filth, and
from several of the doorways great, ill-looking
fellows were cautiously emerging, bound, to all
appearance, upon no very well-disposed or harmless
errands."

The enormous sale of roast pork at Bartholomew
Fair ceased, says Mr. Morley, with all the gravity
of a historian, about the middle of the last century,
and beef sausages then became the fashion.
Thomas Rowlandson's droll but gross pictures of
the shows, in 1799, show those sickening boatswings and crowds of rough and boisterous sightseers. He writes on one of the show-boards the
name of Miss Biffin, that clever woman who,
through the Earl of Morton's patronage, succeeded
in earning a name as a miniature painter, though
born without either hands or arms. In 1808
George III. paid for her more complete artistic
education, and William IV. gave her a small pension, after which she married, and, at the Earl of
Morton's request, left the fair caravans for good.

OLD SMITHFIELD MARKET.

This great carnival, a dangerous sink for all the
vices of London, was gradually growing unbearable.
In 1801 a mob of thieves surrounded any respectable woman, and tore her clothes from her back.
In 1802 "Lady Holland's Mob," as it used to
be called, robbed visitors, beat inoffensive passersby with bludgeons, and pelted harmless persons who
came to their windows with lights, alarmed at the
disturbance. In 1807 the place grew even more
lawless, and a virago of an actress, who was performing Belvidera in Venice Preserved, knocked
down the august king's deputy-trumpeter, who
applied for his fees. Richardson's shows were
triumphant still, as in 1817 was Toby, "the real
learned pig," who, with twenty handkerchiefs over
his eyes, could tell the hour to a minute, and
pick out a card from a pack. In one morning of
September, 1815, there were heard at Guildhall
forty-five cases of felony, misdemeanour, and
assault, committed at Bartholomew Fair. Its doom
was fixed. Hone, in 1825, went to sketch the
dying sinner, and describes Clarke from Astley's,
Wombwell's Menagerie, and the Living Skeleton.
The special boast of Wombwell, who had been a
cobbler in Monmouth Street, was his Elephant of
Siam, who used to uncork bottles, and decide for the
rightful heir, in a very brief Oriental melodrama.
The shows, which were now forced to close at ten,
had removed to the New North Road, Islington.
Lord Kensington, in 1827, had offered to remove
the fair, and in 1830 the Corporation bought of
him the old priory rights. In 1839 Mr. Charles
Pearson recommended more restriction, and the
exclusion of theatrical shows followed. The rents
were raised, and in 1840 only wild beast shows
were allowed. The great fair at last sank down to
a few gilt gingerbread booths. In 1849 the fair
had so withered away that there were only a
dozen gingerbread stalls. The ceremony of opening since 1840 had been very simple, and in 1850
Lord Mayor Musgrove, going to read the parchment proclamation at the appointed gateway, found
that the fair had vanished. Five years later the
ceremony entirely ceased, but the old fee of
3s. 6d. was still paid by the City to the rector
of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, for a proclamation
in his parish. The fair had outlived its original
purpose.

Smithfield Market was condemned in 1852 by
law to be moved to Islington, the noise, filth, and
dangers of the place having at last become intolerable, and half a century having been spent
in discussing the annoyance.

"The original extent of Smithfield," says Mr.
Timbs,"was about three acres; the market-place was
paved, drained, and railed in, 1685; subsequently
enlarged to four and a half acres, and since 1834 to
six and a quarter acres. Yet this enlargement proved
disproportionate to the requirements. In 1731 there
were only 8,304 head of cattle sold in Smithfield; in
1846, 210, 757 head of cattle, and 1,518,510 sheep.
The old City laws for its regulation were called
the "Statutes of Smithfield." Here might be shown
4,000 beasts and about 30,000 sheep, the latter in
1,509 pens; and there were fifty pens for pigs.
Altogether, Smithfield was the largest live market
in the world."

The old market-days were, Monday for fat cattle
and sheep; Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, for
hay and straw; Friday, cattle and sheep, and milch
cows; and at two o'clock for scrub-horses and
asses. All sales took place by commission. The
customary commission for the sale of an ox of any
value was 4s., and of a sheep, 8d. The City received a toll upon every beast exposed for sale of
1d. per head, and of sheep at the rate of 1s. per
score. Smithfield salesmen estimated the weight
of cattle by the eye, and from constant practice
they approached so near exactness that they were
seldom out more than a few pounds. The sales
were always for cash. No paper was passed, but
when the bargain was struck the buyer and seller
shook hands, and closed the sale. £7,000,000,
it was said, were annually paid away in this manner
in the narrow area of Smithfield Market. "The
average weekly sale of beasts," said Cunningham in
1849, "is said to be about 3,000, and of sheep about
30,000, increased in the Christmas week to about
5,000 beasts, and 47,000 sheep. The following return shows the number of cattle and sheep annually
sold in Smithfield during the following periods:—
Cattle. Sheep.
1841 194,298 1,435,000
1842 210,723 1,655,370
1843 207,195 1,817,360
1844 216,848 1,804,850
1845 222,822 1,539,660
1846 210,757 1,518,510

In addition to this, a quarter of a million pigs were
annually sold."

The miseries of old Smithfield are described by
Mr. Dickens, in "Oliver Twist," in his most
powerful manner. "It was market morning," he
says; "the ground was covered nearly ankle-deep
with filth and mire, and a thick steam perpetually
rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and
mingling with the fog which seemed to rest upon
the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. All the
pens in the centre of the large area, and as many
temporary ones as could be crowded into the
vacant space, were filled with sheep; and tied up
to posts by the gutter-side were long lines of
oxen, three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers,
drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, and vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together
in a dense mass. The whistling of drovers, the
barking of dogs, the bellowing and plunging of
beasts, the bleating of sheep, and grunting and
squeaking of pigs; the cries of hawkers, the shouts,
oaths, and quarrelling on all sides, the ringing of
bells, and the roar of voices that issued from
every public-house, the crowding, pushing, driving,
beating, whooping, and yelling, the hideous and
discordant din that resounded from every corner of
the market, and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid,
and dirty figures constantly running to and fro,
and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered
it a stunning and bewildering scene, which quite
confused the senses."

Smithfield Market, on a foggy, rainy morning in
November, some twenty-five years ago (says Aleph),
was a sight to be remembered by any who had ventured through it. It might be called a feat of clever
agility to get across Smithfield, on such a greasy,
muddy day, without slipping down, or without
being knocked over by one of the poor frightened
and half-mad cattle toiling through it. The noise
was deafening. The bellowing and lowing of
cattle, bleating of sheep, squeaking of pigs, the
shouts of the drovers, and often, the shrieks of some
unfortunate female who had got amongst the unruly,
frightened cattle, could not be forgotten. The long,
narrow lanes of pavement that crossed the wider
part of the market, opposite the hospital, were
always lined with cattle, as close together as they
could stand, their heads tied to the rails on either
side of the scanty pathway, when the long horns of
the Spanish breeds, sticking across towards the
other side, made it far from a pleasant experience
for a nervous man to venture along one of these
narrow lanes, albeit it was the nearest and most
direct way across the open market. If the day was
foggy (and there were more foggy days then than
now), then the glaring lights of the drover-boys'
torches added to the wild confusion, whilst it did
not dispel much of the gloom. It was indeed a
very great change for the better when at last the
City authorities removed the market into the
suburbs.

In March, 1849, during excavations necessary for
a new sewer, and at a depth of three feet below
the surface, immediately opposite the entrance to
the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, the workmen laid open a mass of unhewn stones, blackened
as if by fire, and covered with ashes and human
bones, charred and partially consumed. This was
believed to have been the spot generally used for
the Smithfield burnings, the face of the victim
being turned to the east and to the great gate of
St. Bartholomew, the prior of which was generally
present on such occasions. Many bones were
carried away as relics. Some strong oak posts
were also dug up; they had evidently been charred
by fire, and in one of them was a staple with a
ring attached to it. The place and its former
history were too significant for any doubt to exist
as to how they had been once used. Gazing upon
them thoughtfully, one was forcibly reminded of
the last words of Bishop Latimer to his friend
Ridley, as they stood bound to the stake at Oxford:
"Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the
man; we shall this day light such a candle, by
God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be
put out." And the good Latimer's words have
come true.

Some years ago, on removing the foundations of
some old houses, on the south side of Long Lane,
a considerable quantity of human remains were discovered—skulls and other portions of the skeletons.
This spot was understood to be the north-west
corner of the burying-ground of the ancient priory
of St. Bartholomew. The skulls were thick and
grim-looking, with heavy, massive jaws, just as one
would expect to find in those sturdy old monks,
who were the schoolmen, artists, and sages of their
time.

Footnotes

1. The work began, Anthony Munday informs us, on the 4th of February,
1614-15. "The citizens' charge thereof (as I have been credibly told by
Master Arthur Strangewaies) amounting well near to sixteen hundred
pounds."

2. This, it may be added, is in allusion to a proverb often quoted by
old writers—" Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a
man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a queane, a knave,
and a jade."

3. Tokens were farthings coined by tradesmen for the convenience of
change, before farthings were issued as king's money by Charles II.
in 1672.